Something New
by livefvrever
Summary: [discontinued but up for sh*ts and giggles] Max is in a personal hell, having just lost her high-profile job and having to relocate to the scaggiest apartment in Manhattan. Fang just moved across the country, with only a couple cockroaches in his sink for company. What happens when the not-It girl and the new guy find out they're next-door neighbors? Something new.
1. Something Sweet (Chocolate Cake)

**MAX**

_YOUR PASSWORD IS INCORRECT_.

I groan and almost smash my fist into the stupid, _stupid_ 'smartcomputer'. As far as computers go, I paid an arm, a leg, and my grandmother's diamond heirloom for this hunk of junk. Kidding about the heirloom. The only heirloom my grandmother ever had is that one can of chewing tobacco she would always have in her pocket. But that's neither here nor there.

The point is, when I bought this Apple laptop for my 25th birthday (splurging a bit, I know, but it had been a rough year at the ol' A &amp; P and I wanted to treat myself. _Not_ that I work at the A &amp; P. I don't. I work for a PR company called Hannigan and Schmick, which is just as laughable. Anyways.), I was so excited. I had never had such a sleek piece of machinery all to myself before, and I felt like I was well on the way to becoming one of those swishy-haired, Emporio Armani -wearing business dolls, who flitted around on the tips of their six-inch Jimmy Choos and carried thousand-dollar Gucci briefcases. The ones who're all married to top-level business executives and spend their evenings heading out to Park for a fancy dinner and dancing.

Of course, I'm not married. Heck, I'm not even engaged. Nor do I have a boyfriend, or any prospects of one. Actually, I've just gone through a breakup. Well, if recently counts as two months ago. And if a breakup counts as me ending it on the second date. At this point, I don't particularly care if the man I marry has tens of thousands of dollars to spend on his wife, to buy her Emporio Armani –but let's face it, I'd never say _no_ to that.

But the reality is, I'm single as a Pringle, sitting here in the huge apartment I can barely pay the rent for, with no roommate, and I'm unable to remember the password I set for the stupid laptop I couldn't afford without giving up on my dreams for a Mercedes. _Think_, _Max_, _think. _Use that brain that got you into public relations. I kind of feel like a hacker –a hacker that can't get into her own bloody computer, but a hacker nonetheless. I've got seven more password attempts to go before the hard drive wipes itself. Not that I've even stored anything on here… except some old prom pictures and…

Shit.

I _need_ to unlock this computer. Because I've just realized that there's more in here than just stupid pictures of my old prom date, Mark. I saved the entire proposal for the E.B. Cullen book signing somewhere, right? I saved it in here.

I stare at the screen, transfixed by horror. The book signing's the biggest project my boss has ever let me handle. Cullen's a major newcomer in the romance-mystery department of novels. There's going to be at least three hundred people attending the thing. And I've gone and saved the stupid file inside this thousand-dollar piece of scrap metal.

I _need_ this job. How many other twenty-five year olds are earning six figures and living in apartments overlooking Manhattan's Central Park? Well, okay, it's not _overlooking_ the Park, per se, but you can kind of see it out of the living room window. A bit of green in the corner, amidst all of the towering concrete skyscrapers. But the realtor I bought this pad from said it overlooked Central Park. So why shouldn't I repeat her words?

As for my job, I'm kind of already on my second strike. A few months ago, there was a mix-up between some death metal band called the Stinging Sirens and a kiddie band called the _Singing_ Sirens. In my defense, I'm a terrible typist, and everyone forgets letters once in a while. But it was still blamed on me when four enormous punk-rock biker dudes showed up to this kid's eighth birthday bash. Not just any kid. One of Angelina Jolie's kids.

So I was pretty berated, even though I managed to smooth the thing over in the end. The kid got his bubble-blowing, balloon-animal-making, cutesy band, and I got a date with the lead singer of the Stinging Sirens (that's _stinging_, with a T). I ended it with him because he was too scary, with his piercings and his deep growly voice, and his… tattoos in undesirable places. Let me just say, it probably hurt like a bitch to get a skull done down there. I wonder how the tattoo artist managed to keep a straight face. But the tattoo turned me off and I broke up with him without a glance, mainly because I couldn't look at the poor guy without seeing his skull tattoo.

That was my last 'boyfriend'.

And my last screw-up, according to my boss Mike Hannigan.

_Breathe, Max, breathe._

Maybe I should go for a jog. That clears peoples' minds up… right? I haven't been running since I quit the cross country team in junior year of high school. That's a long story, involving two mud fights and, ultimately, a pair of cleats to the face. But I can't get into that now. I need inspiration. I'll go running, and I'll remember my password, and I'll save my job.

Besides, I still have seven password attempts left.

...

**FANG**

I stare at the cake in front of me, trying to decide between a laugh, which would make it seem like I was shaking things off, or to burst into tears, which is so not manly and so unlike me.

I do neither. I smile at the cake in front of me, remembering the times, the glorious years, the wonderful sunny days I'd spent here in California.

And now the cake, in front of me, which reads,

_Goodbye, Fag_!

I'm sure the guys at work thought it was hilarious. Oh, so funny. Leaving me this one gift as a remembrance of my parting. As a testament to all the hours spent in the dark, leaning over stupid petri dishes and taking notes. True, biological research is my passion, but I kind of wish it merited a correctly-spelled cake. At least my last day at work wasn't all bad. I didn't work, for one thing.

Whoever frosted the cake left out only one letter, but it was enough. _Fang_. My nickname is _Fang_. How hard would it be to include that tiny little N in the middle? Twenty-seven years, I've spent here in California. Grew up in Santa Barbara, went to college at UC Davis, got a job as a junior researcher in a quirky little San Diego research firm. Twenty-seven years I've spent here, and this is all I have to show for it.

_Goodbye, Fag_.

My flight leaves tomorrow. I'll never eat the entire thing by then. Maybe I should just chuck it. But while I'm not a particularly sentimental guy (actually, once you enter the word _guy_, you automatically become less sentimental), I decide to leave it on the kitchen table. It's a chocolate cake, anyways, and I adore chocolate more than I do my own health, which could be very bad for me.

_Goodbye, Fag. _

Iggy's coming over in a few minutes to help me heave my junk into my car. He's going to laugh at the cake. Maybe I should chuck it. He'll probably bring up the memory of the time we met in college, when both of us were drunk off of beer coolers and I tried making out with a drag queen –who was dressed very convincingly, let me tell you. How was I supposed to know that he was only trying to hand me a card for the LGBT club, and not coming on to me? His hand only _accidentally_ brushed me, but I was drunk and it was dark and… I have no more excuses.

And yeah, that was my _only_ lesbian experience. I just want to reiterate that. I'm more of a ladies' man. Ask anyone. Ask my last girlfriend, Lissa, who's probably the only person I'm actually glad to leave behind. Well, her, and the stupid baker who iced the words on this cake.

Maybe I should chuck the cake. I can see Iggy getting out of his car through the window. My arm's pretty good. I know I can make it into the trash can before he gets here–but then what? I'll be throwing away the most delicious memory I have of this place. Actually, that's not true. I still have that macaroni diorama I made in second grade of the Chrysler Building. But since I was in second grade it looks less like an amazing feat of architecture and more like an upside-down dildo.

Maybe I should chuck that, too.

I hear the sound of the door opening. Iggy's my best friend, so according to him, he doesn't have to do petty things like knock. Good thing I'm not roommates with him, because the whole sock-on-the-door concept is lost on him. And so were any chances of me getting lucky with Sabrina Gaston that night.

I tense up. _Goodbye, Fag_ is still on the counter. Should I throw it? Should I shove it in my mouth, sorry not sorry?

Too late. He bursts into the kitchen, tall and gangly and as red-haired as ever. He grins at me. "Ready to load it in?"

"No," I say truthfully. And then, because I can't hold it in anymore, I say, "Do you want some cake?"

_Goodbye, Fag._

Bye, California. This is one of my last few days with you, and I'm going to spend it eating cake.

* * *

_**Hey guys, **_

_**This is my hand at writing a romcom. I know it's just the first chapter, but I dunno if it's moving too slow or not. I've read enough romantic comedies in my life to know that the exposition goes on for at least a third of the book. In some cases, three-quarters of the book. Won't mention any names here. However, since I'll only be posting one to two chapters a week, I'll try to make it move a little faster. **_

_**I'd love to hear feedback -I know that 1,500 words isn't a lot to give feedback on but I wrote this at 3:00 in the morning and I want to know if other people think it's even... coherent. **_

_**Rating will probably go up to an M eventually -you know, 'cause a couple of twenty-something adults in Manhattan who've got unspoken attraction can never be expected to keep their hands off each other. I'll try to keep it T for as long as possible, but let's be honest, the fun part's the M part.**_

_**\- HoxtonHeroes **_


	2. Something Stupid (Running)

**MAX **

Okay. Okay.

Now I remember why I quit the motherfucking sport in the first place.

I've run –what, half a mile? Half a fucking mile, and already my lungs are burning up, my feet hurt so bad, and I'm wheezing as though I've just smoked a pack of high-quality, unfiltered cigars.

I come to a stop, hands on my knees, willing myself not to keel over. Instead of relaxing me, the stupid 'jog' has only resulted in a possible heart attack, and a probable chance of me not living to see another day at Hannigan and Schmick's. I should be at a spa somewhere, letting an experienced masseuse rock me into oblivion. Instead, I'm killing myself. On a Saturday.

In high school, I actually had the stamina to run however long the race was. But even back then, I hated running so much that I didn't even blink before I picked up that first clod of mud and hurled it straight at that hoe Nancy's face –she didn't even know what hit her. Until she figured it out, and it only went downhill from there.

I look up. I'm in front of Central Park. I haven't even _entered_ the park yet, and already I just want to give up and go home and curl up with a little bottle of Chardonnay –not that I can afford Chardonnay, probably just a pinot noir –and watch reruns of Mad Men. But I know that if I show up at work on Monday without that proposal in my hand, I'll get fired for sure.

So I decide to take the subway back home. Just 'cause I'm classy like that. People like me are the reason America wins less and less at the Olympics.

But let me introduce myself properly, before you go and get all judgmental.

My name is Maximum Ride, and yeah, that's my real name. If you have a problem, as I did for most of my middle school career, let me just say that after a while, you get kind of used to it. And sure, Max might be a boys' name, but nothing I ever did was girlish to start with, anyways. Or that was my parents' justification.

I stand at the grand height of 5'6''. Tall for a girl, but short for a basketball player. I weigh about 125 pounds… which is conservative, let's be honest. Let's round it up to 130. 130 if I'm too busy (ahem, lazy) to go to the gym for a week or more. 130 if I'm depressed about Reese's new hairdo or that the Giants lost _again_ and I end up overindulging in wine and chocolates. 130 if I'm PMSing.

130 most of the time.

I have shoulder-length, wavy blond-brown hair. Blonde in the winter, when there is absolutely no sun in this godforsaken city they call Manhattan, and more brown in the summer when my hair really comes into its own.

I work for a PR company called Hannigan and Schmick's, and when I first started there after graduating from NYU with a double major in psychology and political science, they took me on with open arms. I was adored, loved by everyone, for my excellent people skills. It's not even like I had excellent people skills –I just loved talking to people. Still do. It's quite possibly the only thing I'm good at. I got to handle the top clients and I got to attend the fancy parties (wearing not quite Emporio Armani, but stuff like Kate Spade is nothing to sneer at) and I got paid six figures, which let me afford my glorious apartment in Bletchley Park.

I don't have a car or a child, so my apartment is my baby. If you think that's weird, that's nothing compared to what I did when I first entered it. I won't tell you. Fine, I'll tell you. I kissed the walls, hugged the floor, and named the apartment Fred, after Fred Weasley from the Harry Potter series, because I fell in love with him when I was twelve, reading the books for the first time, and I'm still kind of in love even though he _died_ (sorry for the spoiler).

So I can't lose this job. It's the only thing I _have_.

By the time I squeeze between the two extremely fat men standing just in front of the subway door and run home, I have one more dorky password in mind, and yeah, it's Harry Potter related. I run home and sprint up the six flights of stairs it takes to reach my floor, and arrive at my apartment, slightly breathless. I pull out the laptop and type in _Horcrux90. _

Nothing. Now I have six password attempts left.

_Yousuckyoupieceofjunk_

Great, now I have five. Curse me.

…

**FANG**

The cake is a distant memory now. Because Iggy and I have finished it off. My last goodbye is now nothing more than a few crumbs inside an overflowing trashcan. Overlookable. Forgettable. Gone.

Iggy steps into my room and nearly faints at all the stuff I'm taking. "Bro –I hate to break it to you, but you're only allowed one carry-on."

"I _know_." I say, stepping into my room behind him. "I'm checking some of it in."

"And the other ninety-eight percent of this stuff?"

I look around my room, at the piles of clothes stacked precariously on the bed. That's not what Iggy's so concerned about. He's looking at the piles of records I have laying everywhere –CDs, vinyls, my old gramophone…

I'm a music person, and I've got so many more CDs than I could ever listen to in this lifetime, even if all I do from now until the minute I die is plug in my CD player and listen to Barry Manilow and Frank Sinatra all day. Which I can't do, because I have a job, I have a social life, and oh yeah, I'm moving.

"I'm taking it in a moving truck." I say, as if that settles the matter.

"You're fucking crazy."

"I don't want to buy new furniture. Especially not in Manhattan. You know how expensive that place is?"

"Now I know why we never had poker night at your place, man." Iggy picks up a CD off of the nearest stack. "The Black Eyed Peas? Really?"

I shrug. "No shame."

"Nah, Fergie's super-hot, so it's okay."

"Are you going to help me or not?" I ask him.

Iggy grins. "Fang… it's your last night in San Diego –"

"No, tomorrow is –"

"And we shouldn't spend tonight packing like a couple of schlubs. Let's go out! I can convince Sam to come. We'll go to that bar you always liked, the Low Palm."

I look around at all the half-packed suitcases, at all the vinyls that have probably been played more often than is recommended, at others that haven't even been played (but shit, they were 99 cents), and I realize I don't particularly want to spend one of my last nights in San Diego packing.

"Low Palm?" I ask, setting the Black Eyed Peas down on top of Michael Jackson's Greatest Hits.

"Yeah."

"Your treat."

Iggy winces. He's a physiotherapist and therefore gets paid a hell of a lot more than I do, so he's the one who usually ends up paying after a night of drinking. "I better hope Sam doesn't show up, then."


	3. Something Kinda Ooh (One-Night Stands)

**MAX**

"Ella!" I practically scream into my battered Samsung phone. "I need you!"

"Her highness would like to see me now?" Ella asks, chuckling. Ella Martinez is my best friend in the history of universes, but right now she's inexplicably pissing me off. And she's only spoken seven words to me. Today is not a good day. Which is dumb. Today is a Saturday. It's supposed to be the best day. But since I might be getting fired, I need her. I need her sass and her spunk and all the things that made me fall in love with her in the first place, when we were both in seventh grade at PS 114.

I remember the number of my elementary school, where I haven't set foot in 15 years, and I can't remember the fucking password I set just a few weeks ago.

"El, I'm about to be fired." I say petulantly.

"I'll be there in fifteen." Ella says immediately, and hangs up.

Sure enough, fifteen minutes later, there she is, dressed in her classic distressed jeans and overlarge sweater from Forever 21. Ella loves shopping, which is kind of a problem if you're a nurse and only make $40,000 a year. _Ella_ would have no problem accepting a man who can buy her Emporio Armani.

"There you are –what took you so long?" I ask, and we both laugh. She lives exactly fifteen minutes away if you take the subway and account for the mid-afternoon Saturday tourist lines. How many different people can see the Statue of Liberty before they get tuckered out, I'll never know.

"I was making my herbal blast tea when you called. Uh, why do you think you're getting fired?" Ella asks me.

I tell her about the Stinging Sirens incident, which she already knows, and I tell her that this is literally my last strike. "I'm screwed," I say, uncapping a bottle of Peach Breeze. Ella got me hooked onto these a few years back, and even though they taste like horse piss combined with burning gasoline, they're only ten cents a bottle and they're totally addicting.

"Is this like the time you thought you had mono and you made Nudge write your obituary but it was just a cold?"

"_No_," I say, reddening at the memory of my mono scare. "And it wasn't just a cold –I was bedridden for four days! I missed the unveiling of the new Maybelline line!"

Ella tucks her long brown hair behind one ear. "So the problem is you can't remember your password, right? This is a perfect time for me to try out my clairvoyance skills!"

I groan slightly. Ever since tenth grade, when Ella managed to predict the weather with a popsicle stick and some Silly Putty, she's been convinced she has ESP. This is coming from the girl who called it ESPN until her sophomore year of college. And I'm completely sure the weather thing was just a lucky guess, but I still bring over my laptop. Worst she can do is make it smell like her Bath and Body Works perfume. And I don't really mind the smell of Japanese Cherry Blossom. Not my thing, but it smells good. Ish.

Ella takes the Mac from me and sets it down on my coffee table. She then sits cross-legged on the carpet in front of it, and I sit down on the couch nearby to watch. Ella closes her eyes and mutters some ancient Greek –well, she says it's Ancient Greek. To me it sounds more like the lyrics to Justin Bieber's Boyfriend.

Trust me, if anyone except Ella told me they wanted to perform clairvoyance on my laptop, I'd tell them to check into a mental institution. But since Ella's my best mate, I abstain. And I've given up on her, so there's that.

Ella begins to run her hands all over my laptop. Tell me this isn't the weirdest thing I've ever seen, my friend feeling up my laptop as if it were the hottest man in the world. As if my laptop was Channing Tatum in disguise (brilliant idea for a screenplay right there). Her eyes are still closed and I'm sitting there, torn between amusement and anxiety, wondering if I should tape this and post it on Youtube, and wishing I had a Youtube account.

Ella opens her eyes suddenly. "I've got something!"

"What is it?" I ask her, sliding off the couch to sit next to her on the floor. I'm a bit wary to touch my laptop, since Ella's gone to second base with it, but she gestures for me to open it, and the lock screen comes up.

"Okay, try… x3k7fi62."

I stare at her. "Huh?"

Ella huffs. "x37… forget it! It's gone now." She crosses her arms and stares angrily at the ceiling, as if it's the crown molding's fault she flubbed it up.

I lean against the couch and close my eyes, done with my quirky friend and her weird habits. "That's it. I am so fired."

"Why can't you just retype the proposal plan thingy?" Ella asks me.

I groan. "Because I've spent a few _months_ working on it. It's really complicated –it has the exact timings, the contracts with the signatures, the licensing agreement, the plan for the decorations… And I know I should've saved it in more than one place, that's my mistake. My question is, how the hell did I forget my password?" I look under my laptop, as if it might be there.

"Oh! I know, you should take it to my tech guy!" Ella says, jumping up.

"Your tech guy?" At least she isn't suggesting ayurvedic treatment or something.

"Yeah –I just remembered! Last month, my computer crashed and he came and fixed it for me. It worked good as new! Of course, I lost all my stuff, but he actually might be able to help _you_." Ella looks at me, excited. "His name's Darrin –hang on, I'll give you his number!"

Ten minutes and one phone call later, I have an appointment Sunday afternoon with Darrin, the tech guy. He is my last hope.

…

**FANG**

This is the life. Heading up to a bar on a Saturday evening, without a care in the world. Iggy got not only Sam to come, but also Zachary, who is more commonly known as the Gasman, though not in front of the ladies. _If_ he ever gets a lady. Personally I can't remember a time when he actually got a woman to come within ten feet of him. Iggy also got Ari to come, which is a rarity because Ari rarely leaves the comfort of his 500 square-feet, junkyard of a house, which could be more accurately described as a videogame station, because that's all he does. I don't even think he sleeps at all, because he's too busy kicking ass at GTA 5.

This means Iggy has to pay more than he bargained for, but he can't be that mad, since it was his idea in the first place.

The five of us manage to snag my favorite table close to the window overlooking the downtown, and Iggy orders the first toast. "To Fang, who's been a damn good friend over the years, and now I'm sorry that he has to go drinking alone."

"To Fang!" the others chirp, clinking beers. I smile, because even though I'd like nothing more than to stay here in San Diego with my best friends, I also know that I have to go to Manhattan because of my career opportunity. I can't be a junior lab technician forever, which is what I've been doing for the past five years. I've only managed to stay afloat for so long because of my large inheritance.

"To Fang." I say, even though I know it sounds pretentious. I nod at a girl at the bar, who's trying to catch my eye. I won't act on it, though. I don't want my last night –well, my last night not marred by endless packing –to be tainted by a stupid one-night-stand. I'm not even the type of guy that has one night stands. I've only had two, and both times it was the girl who up and left, not me.

Actually, I should probably introduce myself properly. My full name is Nicholas Aryan Walker, but most people call me Fang because I didn't grow into my teeth until middle school.

I'm serious. Until sixth grade, until I was eleven, I had these huge-ass front teeth that were almost as big as my fingers. But I wasn't called Beaver Boy or anything humiliating. I was called Fang because I threatened to bite anyone that teased me about my teeth. Damn straight.

Don't worry though –I'm twenty seven and my teeth are pretty damn straight, if I may say so myself. I wore braces as a kid, and they've worked. I also brush my teeth day and night (unless I have a girl over), and I floss… never. But enough about my teeth.

I'm 6'2'' with dark black hair that sometimes I spike up, but I'm usually too lazy for that. So it usually falls in waves over my dark eyes –which simply look dark brown but if you got the time to know me and look into my eyes you'd see that they're actually flecked with gold –a genetic mutation that turned out to look pretty fucking good. Although, let me be honest, if you got close enough to me to look at my eyes you'd probably be looking at something else, anyway. Or _doing_ something else.

I'm not a man-slut –I just have problems with relationships. Commitment problems. The longest relationship I've had lasted for a year, and that was with the psycho bitch Lissa.

But it's not my fault. I just end up with these types of girls. No sustenance, only sex. And while that might seem like a man's dream, let me tell you, it's not really. Pretty soon, even the most animal of men begin to long for something more. They long for something new.

So, I guess that's why I'm headed to Manhattan, with more hopes than regrets. I'm looking for that something new. I'm looking for a fresh start, in what many have dubbed the Greatest City on Earth. I hope it lives up to its promise.

Except, that night, I get rip-roaring drunk –more drunk that you should ever get in your life. The night whizzes by in a flash of color, drinks, shots, karaoke, lots of tears (which is weird… how many drinks did I even have?), and kissing. There was a lot of that, too.

And the next morning, I wake up in my bed littered with lumps that I know to be piles of clothes and CDs that I still haven't packed. I reach out to stretch, extremely hungover from last night and depressed to face a day of last-minute packing –when my hand reaches a rather large bump. I open my hazy eyes and squint to find a much larger bump in my bed than normal.

Panicking, I try my hardest to bring up last night. The hazy, drunken memories are slow to enter my brain. I remember smiling back at the girl at the bar. Little dimple, little crookedness, letting her know that I knew what she was doing. Then I can't remember anything else except for singing Thanks For The Memories at the karaoke counter with a female partner… and afterwards, we kissed…

Shit. Shit. _Shit._

Very slowly, I turn my head to look at the large bump in the bed, which belongs to a… a… red-haired girl, still in last night's makeup, sleeping soundly in my bed. My pulse quickens. How did I have sex with such a hot girl and not even remember her? She rolls over and her arm falls across my chest.

Okay, so maybe the stuff I said last night about not really doing one-night-stands sounds false. But really. I'm not the kind of guy that has such a level of emotional detachment that I'm okay with sleeping with some girl and just leaving her, never to see her again. But honestly, I hope this girl in my bed doesn't linger. I hope she won't stay to cook me breakfast, or to complain that I've left the toilet seat up. I have to pack. I have a flight to catch in less than twenty-four hours. I want this girl to leave, _right now_.

And I want to remember the sex. Might as well wish for that, too.

"Oh, _Nicholas_," she moans in her sleep. Dammit, we had such good sex that I'm making her say my name in her sleep, and I can't remember any of it. I stare at her for a moment, still incredulous, my foggy brain still trying to wrap my head around the situation, and then I slip out of bed and dial Sam on my iPhone on my way to the bathroom.

He picks up on the second ring. "This is Sam Shepard, how can I –"

"Cut the crap, asshole," I say tartly. My voice comes out croaky, probably because of all the alcohol I consumed last night. I thank God I don't have any candles in my bathroom or any shit like that, because I'd probably burst into flames right now. "Tell me exactly what happened last night, and fast. Under thirty seconds."

"Uh, man, I'm still really hungover."

"Anything you know would be good," I say, leaning against the sink and running a hand through my hair. "There's a girl in my bed and I can't remember anything from last night. I need to know what the fuck happened."

Sam chuckles. "Oh, _yeah_. Oh, you are one lucky son of a bitch. That girl was on you all night, man. All night. And you just kept drinking and drinking… I think Iggy told you to stop but then you told him to stick his dick up his asshole and he shut up. And then you were singing Summer Lovin' with this chick onstage and then you two started going at it at the bar… and that's when you got kicked out." He chuckles. "You don't remember any of that?"

"I don't even fucking know why there's a girl in my bed!" I whisper furiously. But I have to cut short my rant because I hear footsteps and I casually lean against the door of the bathroom, hanging up. I try to look less hungover than I am and that's when I realize I'm not wearing a shirt.

"Hey, _Nicky_." she says, smiling knowingly at me. _No one_ calls me Nicky. That's when I realize she's wearing nothing except for my shirt. Shit, shit, shit.

"Hey," I say, trying to sound cool, but on the inside my heart's thumping faster than a rabbit on more steroids than Lance Armstrong. "Last night, huh?"

She smiles and ties her hair up. "_Oh_. You are one bad, bad boy, let me tell you." She slips past me into the bathroom and looks around, predictably frowning slightly when she sees that I've left the toilet seat up.

So she's not commenting on the moving boxes, or the junk that litters my room. Does she know I'm moving? Did I tell this incredibly hot girl that I'm moving in less than 24 hours?

She's taking off my shirt now, and I look away. I dunno why I feel like I have to give her privacy, because she's stripping in the middle of _my_ bathroom, and supposedly I saw enough of her last night. Then I notice she's wearing _my_ boxers.

Mother of fucking God.

"Care to join me?" she asks, opening the shower door. I try to give a nonchalant chuckle but it comes out as a strained grimace. Great. Now she thinks I have problems.

"I just have to… attend to something." I say lamely, and then bolt for the bathroom door as fast as I can.


	4. Something Terrible (Laptop Crashes)

**MAX**

If this isn't shady, I'm January Jones.

I'm standing outside of the shadiest office building I've ever seen in my life. I've heard plenty of stories that start just like this: unassuming office girl walks into a desolate office building that's actually a secret drug gang hideout, and gets forced into being a drug mule.

Of course, the other scenario is that an unassuming office girl walks into a desolate office building, meets the inexplicably hot male secretary, and immediately has sex with him on the dated shag carpeting.

But that scenario is porn, and sadly is probably less likely to happen than the first one.

I look at the address Ella gave me. This is the right building… Maybe I should've asked her to come with me, for moral support. That, and she's a black belt in karate, so I'm sure she can judo-throw any mugger's ass that threatens to come near us. But she's not here, and I need my laptop fixed for cheap, so I shoulder my fears and enter Building 441 –scene of the Max Ride murder.

No. Shut up. I'm going in.

…

To his credit, Darrin Himes seems to be a nice enough guy, for a man who just cost me my job.

Ten minutes ago, I walked into his office, which was pleasantly lit with a nice window of the outside. He explained to me that he was looking for a better office space not located in the middle of Compton, but couldn't afford it at the moment because he was twenty-nine and still living with his mom.

I told him about my problem, and he said he'd seen this problem a million times before, and that the Apple software was actually very easy to crack, and this shouldn't take him more than fifteen minutes. So while I counted the number of pricks in the cactus on his desk, he busied himself with… whatever hackers do, I guess, and after fifteen minutes, he stopped typing. I looked up, and I nearly fell out of my chair.

Because the dumb fuck had not only reset my password –he had reset my _entire computer_. The whole thing was rebooting from the beginning, and I felt my pulse quicken like so much adrenaline pumping through my system.

"What the hell did you do?!" I asked him shrilly. Because I'm a girl, my voice tends to do that annoying thing where it gets even higher when I'm angry. So sometimes I sound like a bat, but I wasn't in bat-mode just yet.

His triumphant smile was wiped clean off by the look on my face. "The classic QR code wasn't going through, so I simply typed the command _reset_ into the typeface…"

"I CAN RESET MY FUCKING COMPUTER MYSELF!" I shouted. "I wanted you to reset my _password_, not my entire existence!"

Darrin looked freaked out, like _I _was a thug that was going to slash _him_. "Miss… I'm sorry…"

"You helped my friend Ella out last month. You wiped her TV, too." I said, remembering what Ella had said yesterday. "You can't fix things! You just wipe them so there's nothing there to even fix!"

Darrin paled even further. "Was there… anything _important_ in the laptop?"

"Yeah. My proposal for the… Oh, fuck it." I sank down into the chair, sighing. "Give me my laptop back. I have to go mourn in peace."

And that brings us back to the present, where I am standing outside in the bright Sunday afternoon sunlight, just waiting to get robbed of the Apple Mac I'm holding in broad daylight. I can almost imagine the Craigslist ad the robber would put up (if robbers advertise the things they sell on Craigslist. I wouldn't know, but that seems kind of stupid, seeing that the person you stole it from could see it).

_Apple Mac, $1200, like new, restored to factory settings . _

Maybe, if the robber's nice, he'll even throw in a free pair of headphones.

I didn't pay Darrin. But that motherfucker was lucky I didn't strangle him. Oh, and there's Ella. I'm going to skin her alive, too, for suggesting I come see the world's biggest Mama's boy.

Right after I skin myself.

**FANG**

I have to do something. I have to get this girl out of here. I can't force her out. Carry her out of the bathroom and dump her on the street. That's against the law, if I lay a finger on her in a non-sexual way. Actually, it's against the law even in the sexual way, but at least we _both_ consented to it.

I can't pretend I have a girlfriend and chase her out. I've learned from experience –not direct –that girls love being the 'side chick'. They love all the secrecy and intimacy. Source: Iggy had two girlfriends for about three months last year. Both of them dumped him and both of them got to smash pies in his face. I was jealous. Not because he had had two girlfriends, but because he effectively got two rhubarb pies for free.

That leaves only one option –I'll have to scare her out. I'll show her my porn collection. It's really just a subscription to PornHub and a couple DVDs I forgot to return… but that should be enough to scare her, right?

I get the trap ready. I get my laptop from the bedroom and set it on the kitchen counter, cranking the volume to _Dude, Where's the Booty?_ all the way up. Just as she exits from the shower, wrapped in _my_ signature dark blue towel, perfect sun-kissed skin still glistening gloriously with droplets of…

I shake my head vigorously and press play, making sure to spread the DVDs on the counter. Ideally, she'd take one look at the scene and just storm out. I don't even mind that she would be taking my favorite blue towel with her in this scenario. But instead, she leans against the doorframe and smiles at me. "Whatchya doing?"

I resist the urge to say, "Eating chocolate." Instead, I say, "Watching p… adult films."

"What?"

I grin inside. "I'm watching porn. Juicy, dirty, nasty porn." I turn the laptop screen to show her _Booty _in all its crudely-shot glory. "I have no shame about it, so if you have a problem, you can go."

I wait with bated breath for her to leave, for her to look at me disgustedly and go, "Eurgh! I can't believe I spent the night with you!" and get the fuck out of my house. I won't even mind if she badmouths me to all her friends. I'm leaving here anyways, in –I check the clock –less than twenty three hours, now.

But she doesn't say that. Instead, she says, "I knew you were confident about yourself –you proved that last night. But now you're proving it even more, and it's so _hot_…"

What? She's not leaving? WHY? I thought the plan was foolproof! "But it's _porn_," I enunciate loudly, thinking she didn't hear me properly. "I'm watching _porn_. I'm committing a sin –and I like it. I LIKE watching other people fuck each other on shag carpeting." I say that last part a little too loudly, and the lady walking her dog outside my open window turns to look at me and frowns. I start to turn red, but then I remember that I'M MOVING.

"Then let's do it. You and me. There's carpet right there." she says, coming onto me. This chick is still wearing my shirt from last night. Doesn't she have her own clothes?

Help, I'm being molested in my own house! "I think you should go," I manage to croak out, which is difficult. I mean, on a scale of one to ten, this girl is easily a twelve. I'm not butt-ugly, far from it, actually, but my usual fare consists of sevens, eights, and the occasional nine. Lissa was a nine; that was for sure. But a twelve? Never have I ever…

She folds her arms. "Why, Nicky?"

I wince. "Because you call me Nicky, which I haven't been called… _ever_. Also, I'm moving in twenty-four hours."

Her eyes widen slightly, and she scoffs. "That's _real_ creative."

"Huh?"

"You… you… you had your little one-night-stand, had a night of _mind-blowing_ sex, and now you're kicking me out? Because you're moving tomorrow?" She snorts. "How _convenient_."

I finally get what she's all worked up about. "Hang on… I'm not lying."

"Right."

"Didn't you see all the boxes in my room?" I demand. "We spent all night in there –apparently."

The girl twirls a strand of red hair around her finger. "Well, I assumed you were messy! And, besides, it's not like we stopped so you could give me a tour of your room or anything."

My head is really starting to hurt. I need to pop an aspirin or two, maybe put a damp washcloth on my head. "I really am moving."

"What kind of guy has a one-night-stand the night before he moves? Because he won't ever have to see the girl's face ever again? You're such a fucking asshole!" she shouts.

"I know," I say tiredly. Man, if I wasn't hungover, I'd be feeling remorseful right now. But I'm not feeling guilty or anything because I can't even remember what happened. "I am a horrible human being. I watch porn with no shame, and I do girls left and right with no feelings. I don't even know your name, to be honest. And I don't care."

"I hate you, Nicholas!" She grabs her shoes, at the doorstep, and storms out, still in my shirt. "Oh, and by the way, my name is Brigid! Brigid Dwyer! I'll tell everyone about you!"

What a morning.


	5. Something Final (Goodbyes)

**_MAX_**

It's Monday morning.

More like _Moanday_ morning.

I am about to be fired. The E.B. Cullen book signing proposal… it's gone. I spent my Sunday evening crying about my lost job over a bottle of cheap merlot and reruns of Seinfeld.

I mean, I'm _screwed_.

Mike Hannigan isn't known for his niceness… to people… in general. In fact, I have no idea why a guy like him is in public relations, since he seems to absolutely hate all forms of human communication unless you're there to talk about the latest Game of Thrones with him. He's thirty-five, radiates intelligence, and he's well over six feet tall. You don't want to mess with him. _I _don't want to mess with him, and it takes a lot to intimidate me.

Hal Schmick is a hell of a lot more approachable… however, he's also never in the office. Either one of his eight girlfriends is pregnant, he's on vacation, or he broke his leg playing golf… you get the idea. It's kind of funny that Hal of all people is so promiscuous, because he reminds me of a large seal –fat, balding, and badly sunburned. Obviously the only attraction he has is his money.

You know, Hal and Mike are such polar opposites that I sometimes wonder how they managed to start a company together.

Maybe they're secretly lovers. I have explored that theory in the past, but the two of them never seem to talk to each other so I honestly don't know.

But now is not the time to be debating whether my bosses should come out of the closet or not. Now is the time to desperately think of a last-ditch effort to avoid losing my job and everything I've worked for in my adult life.

The cab pulls over to the side of the road, in front of my office building. I stare out at it for a moment, not wanting to get out. "Um… on second thought… this isn't where I want to go," I tell the driver.

He grins at me toothily, revealing a good number of fake gold teeth. "You don't want to work, I understand. But you work to feed yourself." He has a heavy Russian accent.

"No… it's just… if I go in there, I'll get fired. So if I _don't_ go in there, maybe I won't get fired." I say petulantly, still refusing to get out.

"You did something bad?"

"I… screwed up, yeah."

"Listen to me, lassie. You did not do anything wrong. Everyone screw up sometime. One time, Vlad get U.N. ambassador in this cab! Very proud! But he drop her off at Motel 6 instead of Waldorf Astoria! No tip! Vlad was very embarrassed but he had to drive the next day, and the next day after that, to make money to feed the family! And he thinks, he will eventually get another U.N. ambassador, and he will drop them in the right place! Maybe he even get president of U.S. of A someday!"

"Maybe you will," I say, grinning.

"You go in there, you hold your head up high, and you say sorry. Big mean boss will understand, otherwise you can come work with Vlad!" The taxi driver says, smiling kindly at me.

I grin. "Thanks."

I give the cab driver a hefty tip (which was pretty hefty, considering I might not have income within the next few hours), thank him profusely, and get out onto the pavement. Okay. Time to go to work.

With some trepidation, I flash my ID at the first-floor receptionist and she buzzes me into the elevator. Hannigan and Schmick shares the office building with a number of other boring small businesses, the most exciting including JP Saffron's Divorce Attorneys and Milton Dentistry. I push the button for the seventh floor and wait as the old, creaky elevator ascends among its old cables. Technically, employees are supposed to take the stairs, as the elevator is for the customers, but I just don't have the energy to climb seven flights of stairs today.

Or every day, if I'm being completely honest. Elevators are the way to go, for me. My philosophy for working out is… why should I, if there's a better option? Must be why I've paid at least five hundred dollars in membership fees for my local Gold's Gym, but I've only been there… twice.

The elevator shudders to a stop at the seventh floor and I get out. Becky, our lovely secretary, waves me in with a smile. I enter my office, which is really just a converted broom closet, and I take out the laptop.

So far, so good. I haven't seen Hannigan yet, so I'm hoping beyond hope he died.

No. Not _died_. But I'm hoping that he didn't come into work today because he got hit in the head by a stray soccer ball and is suffering from total amnesia, so he won't even remember who I am, let alone the E.B. Cullen book signing.

There's a knock on my door and I stand up so fast that I knock over the jar of pencils I usually keep at the front of my desk. Partly because I have a bad habit of biting them and partly because I break them in frustration sometimes.

"Mr. Schmick!" I say, relieved, as his large belly precedes him into my office. Schmick doesn't usually visit me in my office mainly because he doesn't _fit_, so I wonder what he's doing here.

"Maxine Ride!" he says, equally jovially, and I relax a tiny bit more. Surely he can't be that happy if he's about to _fire_ me. But then… why is he so happy? Did he get laid last night? "How's your morning been?"

"All right, sir, just like normal." I say.

"Well, it's about to get better! Remember the E.B. Cullen book signing… the proposal we had you working on for the past few months?"

Yeah, I've also been slowly dying on the inside because I've _lost_ it. "Of course!" I say brightly.

"Well… we want you to present it to us at lunch today! And the best part is, E.B. Cullen _herself_ will be here to laud your brilliance! If you impress her –and I'm sure you will –then who knows? Maybe someday…"

Schmick rambles on and on about career opportunities and climbing the ladder and the lasagna he had last night, but I'm barely listening. My dull panic has flared right back up into a little monster clawing at the inside of my chest. Present? How can I present something I don't have? And E.B. Cullen _herself_ is going to be there! I'll not only be fired –I'll also be humiliated in front of a famous author! I'm ruined!

"Sounds good, sir." I squeak out, willing myself not to throw up or faint or anything.

They want me to present it at midday. It's eight in the morning now –I've got four hours.

I can cobble something together in four hours, right?

It's either that, or starting a new career as a cab driver like my good old friend Vlad.

…

**_FANG_**

"Well… this is it," I tell the guys.

We're standing on the drop-off section of the LAX airport, and hordes of people are rushing in and out of the airport, all around us.

Iggy, Zach, Sam, and Ari have all come to see me off. Personally I'm amazed Ari was able to tear his eyes away from his TV screen for even a second, but since one of his best friends is leaving for the other side of the country… well, I guess he wouldn't want to miss that.

Iggy grins. "This is it," he replies.

"What a way to end your California chapter, man," Sam says to me, grinning. "Having a one-night-stand with a random girl –"

"Shut up." I say, grinning, while the others all laugh.

"Hey, maybe we can all come visit you real soon!" Iggy says.

"Yeah, like a road trip or something!" Zach says excitedly.

"No offense, Zach… but if I had to be trapped in a tin can car with you for seven days I'd rather jumping off of a cliff into a pool full of piranhas." Sam mutters.

Zach grins, and to prove Sam's point, lets one rip. A gaggle of girls that had been eyeing us for a few moments look at him, disgusted.

Sam slaps a hand to his forehead. "Why do we even hang out with you?"

"You'll still be on Xbox Live, right?" Ari asks me. "We can still battle Skyrim every Wednesday night, right?"

"I mean… there's like a three-hour time difference, but why not?" I say. "Every Wednesday night. I promise." Oh, come on. Every guy's allowed a bit of nerdiness in his life.

I look at my watch. My plane's getting in in an hour. "Guys… I have to go," I say. "Tell Lissa… well, don't tell her anything, preferably."

Iggy smirked. "I can't believe you haven't told her you're moving. Man, she'll be so _pissed_."

I wince at the thought. "Exactly… I guess she's the one thing I'm not sad to leave behind." I say, grinning. "In fact, I guess I've more or less dodged a bullet there… "

"I still don't get why you hate her so much." Iggy says.

I look at him incredulously. "Are you serious? She took up _all_ of my time, was extremely clingy, didn't give me any personal space, screamed when I even _looked_ at other girls, and she was after us to have _kids_. Can you imagine me having kids?" I grin ruefully. "_And_ she stole my Kanye mixtape."

"Oh, right. I forgot who we were talking about for a moment," Iggy says. "The mixtape thing put you over the top, huh?"

"Totally."

"Why'd you stay with her for a year, again?"

I grin. "Man… you know why."

"Mind-blowing sex," we say at the same time. Iggy slaps me on the back.

"I'm gonna miss you, man," he says, quietly so the others, who were now talking to the group of girls, couldn't hear him. "You were my first real friend… and I'm really glad I met you that day at the frat party. Even though we were both extremely drunk and I thought you were George Clooney's nephew –"

"Macky Clooney." I say, grinning. "I should adopt that as my alias."

_"Delta Airlines 451: Now boarding at Gate 13."_ The female announcer's smooth voice glides over the intercom and I jump slightly.

"I gotta go." I say, looking sadly at Iggy, and at the other guys, who are now getting the numbers of the baggage girls. So Zach's twisted humor, Sam's sarcasm, and Ari's… nerdiness _are_ endearing qualities.

Maybe, if I find a great girlfriend in New York, we can all go on large dates together. Me and my girlfriend, Iggy and Heidi Klum, and Sam, Ari, Zach, and the baggage girls.

That would be _so_ awkward.

Guys don't hug, so we awkwardly pat each other on the backs. It's not a hug. It's a… man embrace. I bid farewell to a jubilant Sam, Zach, and Ari, each clutching an Alaska Airlines tag with a different number written on it, and I enter LAX.

I join the back of the excruciatingly long check-in line. After ten minutes, much of which I spend huffing, puffing, and glancing daggers at the pseudo-couple in front of me who brought _ten_ fucking bags for their trip, I'm finally called and I heft my black suitcase onto the weigh scale. Well… I'm really leaving.

I'm almost through the security gate –almost in the clear–when I hear an all-too-familiar shrill voice call my name.

Heart dropping into my ass, I turn around to see the _last_ person I want to see on Earth barreling towards me as fast as her six-inch Jimmy Choos can carry her.

"Nicky-poo!" Lissa shrieks.

Dammit, just when I thought I was safe.

* * *

**Yeah, so Lissa's a mega-bitch in this one. I just thought it'd be funny...**

**And don't worry -even though Fang's "leaving" Iggy, Sam, and the others behind, they're too close to him to be cut out of the story completely. Maybe that road trip Zach mentioned is in the cards for the future... **

**Although I pity the fool that gets locked up in a car with someone like the Gasman for a cross-country trip.**


	6. Something Screechy (GTFO, Lissa)

**_FANG_**

"Lissa," I say, attempting to contort my grimace into a non-threatening smile. Inside I'm fucking pissed. What the hell is she doing here? I purposely didn't tell her I was moving so I wouldn't have to put up with her whininess anymore… _but she still shows up_!

"You didn't tell me you were moving, Nicky-poo!" she says, panting. She shoves her over-sized Prada bag into my arms while she straightens her hair from the dreadful exercise she just had –running across the terminal.

"Must've slipped my mind," I say, watching her distastefully.

Lissa smiles. "Oh, I know. You're so busy, with your _scientist_ job…"

I wonder if she knows about my one-night-stand. I wonder if I could tell her.

"So… what're you doing here?" I ask her. "And who told you I was moving?" I'm going to hunt them down and strangle them.

"I heard it from Brigid!" Lissa chirps, taking her bag back from me.

Just as well, because I was about to drop it. Brigid? Surely not _Brigid Dwyer_? Not the girl I slept with and then kicked out of my house? "Oh," I manage. "How do you two know each other?"

But even before she tells me I already know. Lissa's a nurse. It's the only hot-girl profession in California. You know the stereotypes in porn movies where the dying patient has sex with the hot nurse before conking out. Brigid Dwyer, also a hot girl, is also a nurse. It's the only explanation that makes sense.

You know, there are ugly-girl professions, too. Accounting, taxi-cab driving, public relations… I'm not a guy to discriminate girls by their profession but it _has_ been the tipping point in girls I've dated in the past.

Back to the present. "I brought you a present, Nick!" Lissa trills, rummaging around in her bag. "I'm sure you'll love it more than anything else in the world!"

I look at my watch. My plane is boarding. I have to _go_. "What is it?" I ask her petulantly.

She beams so wide it's a miracle her face doesn't split in half. "Me!"

I think I've lost my hearing. "What?" No.

"Me, Nicky, _I'm_ the present! I'm coming to Manhattan with you!"

My world is crashing down around my ears. "No. I mean, you can't. What about your job? Your life _here_? What about the fact that we _broke up_ months ago?"

Lissa pouts. "Nicky, I know you want me back. I mean, let's face it." She flips her long hair. "Who wouldn't? I'm coming with you, because I know you want it."

"I _don't _want it," I say forcefully. "I broke up with you because you were whiny and you didn't care about me, only about how good I looked on your arm." I seriously have to go. The plane's going to leave soon, and I haven't even gone through security yet.

Lissa pulls herself up to her full height, which still isn't very much. Even with her six-inch heels on, she still only comes up to my nose. "What about the sex? You said it was mind-blowing!"

I pause for a second, considering her point, but you can't be in a relationship for someone just for the sex. No matter how amazing it is. "Listen to me. I don't want that anymore."

Lissa's glaring at me. "So. You get an internship in some hot-shot firm at the Big Apple and you think you're better than me? You think that you don't need me? Well, I've got news for you, Nicholas Aryan Walker. You might think you don't need me now, but you'll come crawling back to me faster than Katy Perry changes her hair color. You'll be crawling back within a matter of _weeks_. We'll see how high and mighty you feel then."

Ooh. Ominous. I think I feel a chill. "Thanks, Lissa." I say, nodding at her. "I'll… keep that in mind."

She stomps off, slapping her heels against the linoleum floor extra hard for good measure. I shake my head, staring after her, and head off to catch my plane.


	7. Something Cliché (Sk8ter Boiis)

**_MAX_**

All I have to do in the next four hours is type up the entire book signing proposal. Don't panic, Max. No big deal. Just a few months' work, condensed into the next few hours, and if I don't finish it on time, I'll lose my job. Hannigan's already on edge about the whole Stinging Sirens thing, and I don't need to put him over the top. I'd really like to avoid getting kicked out onto the street, if possible.

Four hours is 240 minutes, which is 14,400 seconds. And shit, I've already wasted about thirty of them doing that mental math.

Okay. I got this.

It's just like a race. I'm racing against the clock. And it looks like I won't be able to go out for my mid-morning walk like I usually do, which is a shame, because I always walk past the really cute paper boy. I've been walking past him for three months now, and I'm usually out three bucks every day because I can't resist buying the New York Times.

Because when I _do _buy the New York Times, he says, "Hey, how's it going?"

And I say, "Fine, you?"

And he says, "Great."

And that's that. Sometimes I say _great_ instead of _fine_, and then he can't say _great_, so then he says _peachy_, which is really cute with his Brooklyn accent.

His name's Dylan, I think. Never asked him, because our conversations have never gone farther than that. But I _have_ seen his nametag a few times… or maybe it's his friend's nametag, I dunno.

Anyways. I've just wasted sixty more seconds thinking about attractive paper boy Dylan.

I am _so _getting fired.

I straighten up. No sense in giving up before it's even started, anyways. I'll half-ass this proposal and when I _do _get fired, I can at least complain that I did everything I could.

…

**_FANG_**

I hate planes.

I've got millions of reasons why. I can never afford anything besides the cruddiest seats –economy class –which leaves me, a 6'2'' guy who hasn't yet stopped growing with about six inches of leg room. Not to mention, I always get stuck with some fattie who spends the entire plane munching on those damn crunchy Lay's chips. _And_ their seat takes up half of mine, besides. So I usually have to spend my entire flight hunched up against the window, praying that Fat McFatso doesn't try get up to go to the bathroom or something.

I've been lucky so far… I've got an aisle seat, and there's a cute girl with brown curly hair a few seats ahead who I helped when she was trying to hoist her carryon onto the overhead storage areas. I also think I might have gotten a hernia from my chivalrous act, because that suitcase was stuffed with rocks. Or at least, something close to rocks.

The two seats next to me are empty –but with my luck, it'll be a cranky, overweight middle-aged couple that I have to barge in on. _Why _couldn't I have gotten a seat next to the one cute girl on the entire flight? So far, as I look around, everyone seems to be a dude. Just my luck, that I'm in the middle of Guy Country. And here's the real kicker –almost all of them are rocking large, over-the-ear headphones like the ones I'm wearing. They _all_ are wearing some form of band t-shirt… and even as I notice this, I pull my leather jacket surreptitiously over my Iron Maiden shirt, until I notice that the guy walking towards me is _also wearing a fucking black leather jacket_.

And they're _all_ looking towards the cute girl as if they think they have a chance with her.

Fuck… am I stuck on a plane with my clones?

No, this is worse than being stuck with Mr. and Mrs. McFatso! I don't _want_ to be stuck on a plane with my clones! I always thought I was unique, but this is horrible –being stuck on a plane with a bunch of guys in their late twenties and early thirties who all reckon Bon Jovi's the last resounding word in rock, who all think that Chucks are superior to Vans, who all are wearing Led Zeppelin t-shirts…

I gotta get off. But even as I stand up, the guy with the black leather jacket comes up to me and grins. "Hey. I'm Joey. I'm sitting next to you -21B?"

Numbly, I sink back down into my seat and nod. "Nick." The seatbelt sign's on now –there's no running.

I sit back down and give this Joey character a sideways glance. He's busy thumbing through Rolling Stone magazine –how painfully obvious. With his dark brown floppy hair and his practiced smoldering face (like I've spent hours perfecting in the mirror), we look like twins. I'm dying here.

He nods to my headphones. "Whatchya listening to?"

And for the first time in my life, I find myself wishing I had some One Direction or other crap on my iPod. Just to go against the stereotype, or whatever. So I keep quiet and I think I'm in the clear, until Joey leans over and snatches my iPod from my hands. What the hell?!

"Smells Like Teen Spirit. Points for sticking to classics. You ever seen Nirvana in concert?"

I do _not_ want to be having this conversation with Joey my clone right now. "Nah. Saw a few cover bands, but it wasn't the same."

"I'm flying out to Manhattan for an _epic_ AC/DC concert. One night only at Madison Square Garden. It's gonna be sha-weet!" Joey remarks, leaning back in his seat and pulling out Rolling Stone again.

"Nice," I mutter, hoping he won't talk to me anymore. It's not like I'm an antisocial person, but I don't like talking that much. Not really a sensitive kind of guy. Chicks dig a sensitive guy, but it just seems like too much work for me.

The plane's engine's heat up. It's been a few minutes since Joey's tried to initiate conversation, and I'm hoping that those few minutes will translate into six hours. Thank _god _it's not a layover flight –I don't think I could stand to sit next to him on more than one horror show of a flight.

"_Whoa_," Joey said, yanking out his headphones, and I mentally sighed. Guess I wasn't going to be that lucky. "Did you see that chick?" I groan as he nods to the curly-haired girl. "Reckon I should try to get her digits?"

Fed up, I finally snap. "You know, she probably doesn't want some wannabe rocker punk like you slobbering all over her. And that goes for everyone on this plane!" I said, raising my voice so the people in other seats could hear me.

"Damn, Nick, are you PMSing? Is that even possible?" Joey asks, sliding his headphones back on. I lean back in my seat, close my eyes, and groan. It's going to be a long flight… and I'm going to hate every second of it.

…

**_MAX_**

I think I've died.

My hands are about to fall off, my head's throbbing like there's a little monkey in there bashing against my skull with a plastic hammer, and my eyes are blurry, the way they get right after I binge out on an entire bottle of pinot noir.

I don't do that _that_ often, if you were wondering.

But I've finished. I'm done. Parts of it are completely sloppy, others have been glossed over completely, but it should be enough to not get me fired for today. I'll spend more time working on it over the weekend.

If I _have_ died… then this is the shittiest heaven I could've imagined. It looks _just_ like my closet -erm, office at work.

"Hello, Miss Max!" comes a voice, and I jump about a foot into the air. I look up to see Schmick's belly preceding him into my office –there's definitely not enough room for _all_ of him. I wonder how he manages to not completely squash the girls he has sex with –but then, it's not like he'd be on top, would he?

Oh, Max. Focus on the present. "Just about ready, sir." I chirp, plastering a fake smile on my face that only a PR professional could do with a few years of practice under her belt. I am about the farthest possible distance away from ready that one can be.

But I keep smiling as Schmick leads the way into the conference room. As I enter, I see my other boss sitting at the head of the long table, and Schmick takes his place on my right, next to E.B. Cullen herself. I'm going to hyperventilate. I keep smiling as I pull up the PowerPoint. I don't dare do anything else.

"Here's Maxine Ride," Hannigan says to E.B. Cullen. "She's one of our best young employees, and very skilled at what she does.

Fish paste. I think my eye is twitching.

* * *

_**I am a horrible person. I said I would update one to two times a week, and I've been updating once or twice a month. Real life has really take a toll out of me, and I've just been so busy. That being said... I will continue this story, because I like where it's going. Just don't expect frequent updates like I said I would. I wasn't this busy then... a lot can change in a few months. Who knew? **_

_**I know it's going kind of slow, but this is a romcom, and what romcom doesn't start off slow? You're still getting to know my kooky, twisted versions of Max and Fang. You're still slowly getting sucked into the story. Nothing real has happened yet. But it will quite soon... if my scribbles on notebook paper ever turn out to become bonafide chapters. **_


	8. Something Crazy (No, My Headphones!)

**_MAX_**

I don't even want to talk about it.

That was, by far, the single most amount of bullshitting I have ever done in my life –even more than on my philosophy paper in college.

And now I'm done, and I don't want to talk about it.

But my bosses have other ideas.

As I'm packing up my laptop and hastily-cobbled posters, I look up to see both Mike Hannigan and Hal Schmick looming over me. Well, technically, only Hannigan's looming. Hal's full height is only until my shoulders. It's funny –standing there, next to each other, they kind of look like a baseball bat and a ball. The tall, skinny one and the short, round one.

"Maxine," Hannigan says sternly, and my heart starts thumping. "That… was…"

"Brilliant!" Hal Schmick says, grinning broadly. "So inspired! The randomness and the messiness made it so unique!"

"It exactly captures the whirlwind, chaotic essence of Stomping in the Rain in Knock-Off Doc Martins," E.B. Cullen says excitedly. "I think this might turn out to be my favorite book signing so far!"

I nod, exhaling a beyond-huge sigh of relief. They _liked_ it? Thank _God_! "Well, I was only happy to help," I say modestly.

"And E.B. and I were talking," Schmick says excitedly, "and she's in town until tonight! How's about we all go down to a bar, have a few drinks, and work out the logistics?"

Logistics? I haven't got a clue what any of the bloody logistics are supposed to be! Quick, think of a lie! Say you can't go! "I'd love to," I begin, pulling a regretful face, "only I can't, because my aunt's flying in from Minnesota and have to go pick her up at the airport tonight."

Schmick looks disappointed. "Bad timing, eh?"

"The _worst_," I say. "Believe me, I would love _nothing_ more than to work out logistics with you guys. But my aunt's new to the city, and if I don't show up on time, she'll just get on a plane right back to –to –" Shit, what's a city in Minnesota? " –Schpalkvalmilch," I say randomly, face turning red.

They're not onto me, though. "Well, I guess we're done for the day, then!" Hal says jovially. "Let me escort you down, Maxine dear, find you a cab –"

And before I know it, he's on the street, hailing me a cab. "JFK airport, please," he's saying to the driver. No. _No_. How do I get out of this one? Hal looks at me. "That _is_ the right airport, right?"

I nod, mouth dry. "Yep. That's the one."

Hal waits, beaming, for me to open the door and get in. Bloody hell. It looks like I _can't_ get out of this. "Have a nice time picking up your aunt!" Hal says, and waves at me as the cab pulls away from the pavement. I turn around just in time to catch a wink.

Fuck, does he know I'm lying?

"All right, where to in JFK, sweet'eart?" the cabbie asks.

I twist my finger around the frayed seatbelt tightly. "Um, Arrivals," I mumble.

He glances at me in the rearview mirror. "Don't like yer aunt, huh?"

"She's the _worst_."

…

**_FANG_**

Finally, I've touched down in JFK after six hours of sitting next to Guy Who Keeps His Music Way Too Damn Loud, aka Joey. For six hours, I've been listening to his Bon Jovi: Greatest Hits album. I'm sorry, but there's only so many times a person can listen to You Give Love a Bad Name.

Secondhand music inhalation can kill you, kids.

But as I take my baggage out of the overhead compartment, the cute girl winks at me and all of a sudden I put on a show of my heavy luggage being no weight at all, complete with a lot of flexing, and she smiles at me before turning around and just planting one on the mouth of the guy sitting next to her.

And _that's_ why I hate planes.

So I stumble out of the aircraft with bags under my eyes and my hair looking worse than Elvis Presley's without any grease in it. It's safe to say that I'm not quite pleased with New York so far. All I want is to plug in my headphones and chill out to some music, but as I reach in my backpack my headphones aren't there.

For a moment, I freeze, right there in the middle of the hallway leading to baggage claim. No. _No_. Those headphones were limited edition Bose, and I paid two hundred dollars for them. Or, as Iggy liked to put it, a Whole Month's Salary. Sadly, he wasn't wrong. I must've left them on the plane.

I've got to go back and get them.

The gate to the plane is closed, so I look around wildly to see those guys in neon florescent jackets exiting out a door marked _Employees Only_. I slip out that door with them and find myself in the middle of the ground where the planes are parked.

Some of the guys loading luggage onto a truck look at me weirdly, but I ignore them as I head for my plane. But even as I approach it, it starts rolling out of the gate and onto a different one, presumably to begin its next flight.

"No!" I yell, and begin sprinting. "STOP THAT PLANE!"

More heads turn as I run as fast as I can (which is pretty damn fast) towards the plane, which keeps moving away as though the pilot can't see me.

…

**_MAX_**

"Here we are, darlin'," the cabbie says as he pulls into the arrival zone of JFK. "You want me to wait around for yer aunt?"

"No," I say breathlessly. "That's fine."

He shrugs and drives off as I get out onto the pavement, wondering what the hell I'm doing here. I guess there's nothing left to do but get another taxi home. What a waste of an evening. And a hundred dollars.

I walk over to the taxi stand, which is separated by a chain-link fence from the airplane gates and hangars. I notice that all the workers down there are staring at something –and then I see it.

A guy sprinting down the runway –it looks like he's chasing a plane.

And as I watch, a security car pulls up to him and blocks his path. After a few moments (and some shouting, it looks like) , the guy gets into the car the security car drives away. I smirk. Some tourists can be such idiots.


	9. Something Hasty (A Drunken Mistake)

**_UPDATE: _To the guest who apparently doesn't like Max's _drunken_ justification for her actions... she's _drunk,_ okay? Don't tell me people are rational when they're drunk. Anyways, I changed that one sentence, so hopefully you're happy. I don't want to sound rude or anything, but if this story is too risque ****for you, then don't read it.**

* * *

**_FANG_**

It's another few hours before I have stumbled out of the airport from the security room. Apparently, running after a commercial plane while wildly swinging a black backpack around is pretty much synonymous with _terrorist_ in New York. I don't blame them -after all, a lot of bad crap has happened here over the years.

But who in their right mind would think _I _was a terrorist?

After proving that I was, in fact, Nicholas Aryan Walker, who moved from San Diego to Manhattan to pursue a better job opportunity, they still weren't convinced. So then I had to call Iggy to prove that I, indeed, had lived in California for twenty-seven years, I had to dig up my birth certificate, and I had to -here's the kicker -turn in my phone for more careful observation.

The only thing the cops are going to find in there are long text conversations where Iggy and I rate different cartoon characters based on how good we think they'll be in bed. Example -I gave Kim Possible a 10 because of her badass fighting moves, while Iggy gave Lizzy Maguire a 7 because her lips are too big.

So there's a nice start to my stay in Manhattan.

I walk outside to hail a cab, lugging my black suitcase and my backpack dejectedly. Today is not one of my better days. All I want to do is go back to my hotel room and crash for about twenty hours. As I successfully hail a cab -ha, I'm practically a New Yorker already -I flop down onto the cracked leather seats, ignoring the tinny voice issuing a seatbelt warning.

Big mistake.

The taxi driver starts off by shooting across three lanes of traffic, which doesn't even make sense. How can there be so much traffic at two in the morning? I'm hurled against the door of the taxi and my backpack hits me in the face. Just as I start to regain my bearings, the driver makes a hard left and it takes all my strength to keep myself from falling head-over-heels. Finally, as we stop at a stop light, I manage to put my seatbelt on and hear the click. What the fuck.

I'm spitting mad by the time I reach my hotel. The company I'm working for is paying for my stay until I can find suitable accomodation. But I'm not too excited about that -I know that in Manhattan, on my kind of salary, the only thing I'll be able to afford is a one-bedroom studio apartment. It doesn't even compare to my gorgeous, stand-alone house in San Diego.

I pay the taxi guy about twice the regular charge so he doesn't think I'm some stingy tourist and go up the stairs to the Ramada Inn. I walk up to the cute receptionist and clear my throat. "Hi, I'm Nicholas Walker, here to check in."

She tears her eyes away from the television in the corner of the lobby, which is playing some footage of an idiot chasing a plane in JFK... wait, shit. I'm on the _news_? Why am I on the _news_? I thought New York was the crime hub of the entire country! There should be mob bosses and scary gunmen on the news, not a poor guy who left his headphones on a plane! I clear my throat again and she comes back to earth. "Sorry, yes, Mr. Walker, you'll be in room 117." She pauses as my room key starts printing, and grins at the television. "Some tourists, huh?"

I nod. "Yep. They can get pretty crazy..." Please get me out of here.

The receptionist hands me my room key, her blonde hair threatening to fall out of its bun. "You know, you look really familiar. I feel like I've seen you before."

"Well, I was on one of those doctoral pamphlets when I was a kid. How to Avoid Constant Diarrhea," I say, trying to take the room key from her.

She shakes her head, smiling. "No... I almost feel like..." She turns to the television, which is _still _playing the footage of me running after the plane, and back at me. She looks at me incredulously, her bright red lips curved in a salacious smile. "_No_."

"Listen, I've had a really long day, and I just want to get up to my room and sleep..." I say plaintively.

The receptionist smiles. "So it _is_ you up there?"

I turn red, and that's enough answer for her.

"Fine, Mr. Nicholas Walker. I'll strike you a deal. I _won't_ tell my coworkers that the comedic man running after the plane was you, and in return, you have to give me your number."

"My number?" I say blankly.

She grins and her blonde hair falls out of its bun and over one shoulder. "Do we have a deal?"

"Yeah... yeah, okay," I say numbly. "That sounds like a plan."

She smirks at me. "I'm thinking you're very new to the city."

"Yeah."

"I'm thinking you'll need someone to show you around."

"Uh..."

The receptionist leans forward. "I'm Star, by the way. Star at _everything_ I do." And she winks.

We talk some more, and Star agrees to take me on her version of the New York tour tomorrow morning. So fifteen minutes later, I finally enter my hotel room, grinning from ear to ear.

Yeah, okay, maybe New York isn't so bad after all.

* * *

_**MAX**_

It's been so long since I've had a girls' night out, and that's exactly what I'm doing right now. Just a night for me to ignore the stress of work, and the very imminent possibility that I'll be given the sack. So after I got dropped home from the airport, I called up Ella, Nudge, and Angel for a night on the town. And here we are, at one of those bars that seems to exist solely for men to hit on women and for people to have sex in bathrooms.

"Oh my God, I have to be at work in six hours!" Angel says, giggling like mad after her fourth drink. She's an elementary school teacher, and she's putting away shots like they're made of water. Nudge snorts, struggling to balance herself on the spindly bar stool.

"Call in sick or something," she says, swaying slightly. Her mocha skin seems to glow in the hazy light from the bar.

Angel sighs. "I _can't_... I already called in sick last week to go to that Prada sample sale with you. I'm just gonna go to work hungover... maybe have the kids color the whole day or something..."

I'm busy downing my third martini in an hour when Ella taps me on the shoulder. She doesn't usually drink or anything, because she's a weird yoga/health nut, but her eyes are sparkling with a kind of fervor that can only come from drinking a crap ton of liquor. "Max, I talked to two guys, and they're totally down if we want to go home with them!"

I look to where Ella's pointing, to a couple of cute guys in suits who grin and wink at me, and I give them a thumbs-up. "What did you say to them about me?"

Ella bounces on the balls of her five-inch high heels. "Just that you were really stressed and looking to blow off some steam."

I wince. "That makes me sound like a whore."

"Well, they're leaving pretty soon, so do you want to or not?"

I look over at Nudge and Angel, are now both busy getting down on the karaoke machine by doing a really bad rendition of Katy Perry's I Kissed a Girl. I look back at the cute booty call boys, who are both easily an eight out of ten.

I just want to say here that I'm not desperate. Well, just saying that makes me sound desperate, so forget I said that. I've dated, sure, but I've never had much luck in that scene. But, you know, I'm drunk, I might get fired, and I'm only twenty-five, for God's sake. I should live a little. It's a little-known fact that this is how Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook. He was busy playing beer pong with his college buddies and, after his fifteenth shot, decided to develop an easy way to booty call hot girls. "Okay. I call the one with the blonde hair. He keeps winking at me." I wave back.

Ella groans. "Fine. But the brunette better have a good personality or else I'm never doing this with you again."

Blondie and I hail a cab and he tells the driver the address of his apartment. On the way there, Blondie keeps trying to feel me up, and I keep swatting his hand away. "What's your name?" he asks me, and I grin.

"Maxine Ride."

"Nice. I'm Jeff. Jeff Hannigan."

Jeff Hannigan... that sounds familiar...

...

And that's how I end up in bed the next morning facing a framed picture of my boss.

I stifle a scream and sit up boltright. Why is a picture of Mike Hannigan here?! Where am I, even?

It's then that I remember last night. I look over at the blond boy tangled in the sheets next to me, and then it all comes back.

Jeff Hannigan...

I'm in bed with none other than my boss's son.

But, you know, it could be worse. I could be hungover -_shit_, my head is throbbing like hell.

Well, at least he doesn't live with his dad, right? No one has to know. In fact, he's not even awake yet. I carefully tiptoe out of the bedroom and try to put my dress from last night on, all prepared for the walk of shame back to my own apartment.

Okay, okay, don't panic, Max. All you have to do is get the hell out of here. It's not that hard. It's not hard at all. I tie my hair up into a loose ponytail, grab my heels and my bag, and try to slink out of the room as best I can while having a throbbing headache, a parched throat, and the need to hurl. I'm almost to the door of Jeff's apartment when I hear the door opening. _Shit_.

I duck behind the sofa just as a person walks in. It's him. It's Mike Hannigan.

Oh, God, _I am so fired_.

* * *

**They _will_ meet. Eventually. I'll make it happen. It's going to be a long, drawn-out, painful process. **

**Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter -Birdwatched, The Silken Ninja, and a guest. I know this story doesn't have a lot of reviews but it doesn't matter because the ones I _do_ get are so wonderful to read. **

**Until next chapter!**


	10. Something Glazed (Those Eyes)

**_MAX_**

I might've jumped the gun a little.

I might've thought the milk delivery man was Mike Hannigan, my boss, the guy who controls my life. Who even _has_ a milkman anymore?

I might've crawled out of the fire escape and down the rickety stairs on the outside of the building when I thought no one was looking.

I might've flashed a few people because I was still wearing my whoreish skirt from yesterday and I left my panties on the floor of Jeff's room.

I might've done that. Not saying I didn't.

But the worst part of the whole ordeal was clinging to the creaky stairs of the fire escape, praying for my life, and hearing the milkman saying, "Here's your milk- two cartons of fat-free, and one carton of whole. By the way, why is there a girl hanging onto your fire escape?"

* * *

**_FANG_**

Okay. Okay. My night was...

Well, it was...

It was...

"Just say the fucking words already, man!" Iggy practically yells into the phone, and I have to take it off of speaker and give the people around me apologetic looks for his vulgarity.

"Keep your voice down! I'm in a crowded subway station," I say, stepping to the side to avoid getting crushed a harried guy in a suit who was carrying about six suitcases- three in each hand.

"You have service down there?" Iggy asks incredulously. "Man, New York's improved since I went there."

I leap over a huge puddle of what I hope is yellow Gatorade and nearly drop my phone. "You've never been here."

"Oh, haven't I?" Iggy says sarcastically. "Summer of '93. Beat _that_."

"You were five years old, idiot. Even if that wasn't a lie, you wouldn't remember anything." I have to duck this time to avoid smacking into a mother carrying two infants, one in each arm. Jeez, people need to get a grip on their lives.

"Okay, forget it. Tell me how the sex was," Iggy whines, and I grin in spite of myself. "Was she hot? Of course she was hot. A girl named Star has _got_ to be hot. How were her boobs? Kim Possible-level, or better? Was she better than Lissa in bed? I bet she wasn't as good as Lissa. Lissa and you always had mind-blowing sex-"

"She was hot," I say, grinning. _"_It was _hot_."

"That's all you're going to say? It was hot? I've never been more disappointed in you as a friend. Details! Details!"

"Welcome to New York, Iggy," is all I say, feeling a smile spread over my face. "Welcome to New York."

And then I get shunted next to an extremely drunk guy who stinks of cheap liquor as the train starts to become exceedingly packed like we're all sardines in a tin container. My phone loses service and the call drops. Someone steps on my freshly polished shoes; another elbows me in the ribcage as he tries to fold his umbrella.

To top it all off, I realize I'm on the wrong train just as it begins rushing away from the station.

Welcome to New York, indeed.

* * *

_**MAX**_

I wander along the streets aimlessly, not wanting to go back home just yet. Even though it ended horribly, what I had just experienced was nothing short of an adventure, and I'm not ready for that feeling to end.

Besides, I'm famished.

Just as I think thus, a Starbucks appears in my line of sight, and I nearly sprint towards it. Time to get my inner white girl on! But I'm already a white girl so I guess... Never mind.

The shop's almost empty when I enter, which is really strange. It's a Saturday morning and there's only one other person in line before me, a tall, dark-haired guy who's got a huge map spread out on the counter in front of him and is totally confusing the hell out of the poor barista with his wild hand gestures. I roll my eyes. Tourists.

I walk up and wait behind him, making an apologetic face at the girl behind the counter. But the shop's pretty quiet, and it's not hard to hear what the guy in front of me's saying, even though I swear I'm not trying to eavesdrop.

"Okay, I meant to take the green line to Lexington Street, but I took the purple one instead and ended up here," he's saying. "All I'm asking is how to get from Penn Station to Lexington." Huh. He has a surprisingly deep voice. I was expecting a croak, but this voice is kind of sexy, all husky.

The barista's looking flustered. "Sir, I don't know how the subway system works -I literally just started going to college here a few weeks ago."

"You take the blue line at Penn and transfer at 51st street," I interrupt, wanting to get my coffee. "Now would you mind moving to the side so I can order my Americano? A tall one, please," I add to the barista, who looks relieved, nods, and immediately busies herself with making my drink. I drum my fingers on the glass counter, vaguely wondering if I should go for a doughnut as well. I'm supposed to be limiting my fats... Fuck it. I've had a really rough night and I deserve it.

I open my mouth to order a glazed doughnut but am interrupted by the same sexy voice from earlier. "It's on me."

Part of the reason why I'm not looking at the guy is because I don't want to be disappointed when his face doesn't match the sexiness of his voice. So I avoid looking at him. "No."

He chuckles, which is even sexier than his regular voice. "You just saved my life. New guy in a big city with absolutely no fucking clue where he's going? I should at least buy you a... glazed doughnut?"

I whirl around to stare at him. "How did you know...?" Oh. _Oh_.

Well. I'm pleasantly surprised, to say the least. I already knew he was tall, but I didn't know that his dark eyes would sparkle like that, or that his dark hair would ruffle over his forehead like that, or that his smile'd be perfectly crooked like that, or... or...

"Okay," I say, regaining my composure. "Buy me a glazed doughnut. It'll be your fault when I don't fit into my mom jeans."

Oh God, what have I said? The stranger's smile just grows wider. "You have mom jeans?"

"So what if I do?" I turn on the defensive, having run out of moves. Or maybe I didn't have any in the first place. "Girls are allowed to wear comfortable things."

He gestures to the barista to pack a doughnut. "I see you're following your own rule." He gestures to my tight skirt and sequined top that's showing off a little too much cleavage for 9:00 in the morning. I give an inward groan.

"I had a rough night," I say shortly. No need to go into my spotty personal life with this random man.

"Haven't we all?"

I hold up my doughnut and my drink, letting him know my job here is done and that I'm beyond eager to leave. "Thanks for the... doughnut."

"Thanks for the life advice."

"What life advice?"

He blinks and grins. "Oh. I guess you forgot to tell me. Follow your dreams! Wear sweatpants in public! Brush the haters off!"

Now I'm grinning, too. "Oh. Yeah. That. Well, you're welcome... erm..." I trail off awkwardly, realizing that I don't know his name. "Doughnut guy,"

"I like Doughnut Guy, but my real name's Nick, sadly."

"I like Doughnut Guy," I repeat, grinning.

* * *

_**FANG**_

She leaves before I can get her name. Runs right out the door. In fact, she leaves before I can even say anything else. As she rushes down the street with her rather high-calorie breakfast, I stare after her, grinning slightly.

No one told me New York was filled with attractive girls.

I start to fold up my map when I notice that she's left her purse on the counter. It's a small red thing, probably no bigger than the palm of my hand.

Looking surreptitiously at the barista, who's now tapping away on her phone due to the lack of customers, I open it.

Sadly, there's no form of ID in there- but there _is_ a twenty. And some assorted change that would be really useful for the many transfers I have to take to get to Lexington... I look around and take the money out, shoving it deep into my pockets. This isn't some Cinderella shit. I'm not about to run after that girl to give her back her wallet.

And now I'm twenty-two dollars richer.

* * *

**I know they sorta met in this chapter, but the _real_ first meeting is still a ways away, so don't worry if this was underwhelming and/or cliche. Also, this was really more of a filler chapter. But it was a chapter fitting my gradual ease back into the world of regular updating (of which I was never a part of in the first place, haha). **


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